Retry
by Hagne
Summary: Life did not have a restart button. You could not pause it, not even if you wished for it. You could only keep on playing, even if it was unfair, but when you die, you remained dead. No phoenix down could bring you back. Because it was life, and life was that way. A real bitch. But if you had had the chance to choose? What button would have you pushed? Retry or Game Over?
1. Chapter 1

And fate may fall upon you, while the devil is knocking, right at your door.  
A taste of destiny you're searching for  
**Awaken, awaken** The fight is at your door, take up the cause.

Awaken ( ft. Valerie Broussard ) - League of Legend

\- She is too much for you, and you know it.

A pale eyebrow reached the equally pale hairline when the slurred voice reached her ear, but slurred voices were common in that particular little cafeteria of Houston, Texas, so the young girl gave no mind to the drunkard slumped on the plastic seat, keeping on waiting patiently for the order of the sweet, teenage boy who was scanning the menu with a nervous smile while glancing timidly to the pretty young girl who he was trying to woo.

\- She will break your heart, buddy. Beautiful ladies do this all the time with people like us. They chew your heart before spitting it on the ground.

A frown darkened the young boy's face when the bitterness of the statement made him turn with a curse on his tongue, curse that died upon his mouth when the poor boy noticed something that made him pause. And blinking. And lowering his eyes in shame.

Heavy spectacles frame. Messy hair. A gangly figure. _An older version of himself_, a similarity that seemed to confirm something the poor boy already knew, deep down, in his chest, probably confirming a silly fear of being unworthy of pretty young girls since he was a nerd, a sweet nerd, but a nerd nevertheless.

And when ever the nerd got the pretty girl, in the end?

_Never_, and, especially, not in real life, that was what the poor boy was probably thinking while turning with a sad smile to the pretty girl who shrunk in her seat with her blue eyes glued to the table, saddened for a silly thought of her own about never been able to meet Mr. right guy.

Her fingers twitched a little on the block notes, but Alan, her boss, was watching her with the eyes of a hawk and the scowl of an old barn owl, and she knew how badly he would have reacted if she had interfered. _Again._

Because she would have interfered, **she always did**, but she also knew that Alan's heart was still too weak for the surgery to bear another of her _hero things._

She would have probably crushed the button on her keyboard while scrolling down the list of the right things to say to save the day if she had been playing, but life was more complicated than video games.

In real life, people were more thick headed and liked to complicate things, relationships.

Too proud to admit their weakness in front of others.

Too scared to profess their love openly.

Too lonely to try to be brave for someone else.

But she, who belonged to the generations of kids who had been left in front of the screen of smartphones and television while their parents kept on bickering behind their back, she, who had been raised by the heroic deeds of imaginary characters while the world seemed able only to find new terrible ways to destroy itself and the people who lived in it, she had learned to do the brave thing.

And helping people when they needed help, even when they did not _specifically_ ask for it was something that the heroes of her stories, of her videogames, would have done, whatever Alan would have said about it.

People who minded their business lived longer than others was what the old, grumpy man used to grumble under his breath whenever she was close enough to listen to his continuous rumbling, and she could already hear it slipping between his clenched teeth as she rushed to the mini bar, snatching a couple of cokes and a can of iced coffee before closing it with a flick of her hips.

\- Here.

Both the teenagers jumped with big, scared eyes when she pushed towards them the two cokes with maybe too much strength, making one of them fall with a loud thud on their table, but a smile small was what she offered them in apology before slipping in front of the heartbroken man who had now his forehead pressed on the cool table.

A loud grumble followed the hissing of the iced coffee she had just pushed towards him, but when the can _hit_ his head on purpose, an angry grunt left his lips as the gangly man focused his attention on the woman who was waiting for him to do something.

Blinking tiredly a couple of time to clear the blur in front of his eyes, the young man was ready to hurl at the meddling woman all the curses he knew before something convinced him to keep his mouth sealed, blinking a second time to adjust his eyes and clearing his mind.

But the more he blinked, the more confusion clouded his mind while the startled awareness to be really _too drunk_ convinced the young man to rub his eyes with a tired sigh.

\- _Please_, tell me that you have Princess Serenity's crescent moon on your forehead before I start to seriously doubt my sanity.

Thrilled by the discovery that he had guessed instantly to whom belonged the tattoo on her forehead, she felt more prone to behave like a responsible adult instead of a capricious child, waiting patiently for him to focus his black eyes on her a second time, smiling gently to his frown when he noticed that yes, she had Sailor Moon's crescent moon tattooed on her forehead, but that, unfortunately for his sanity, that one wasn't _even_ the strangest features he could notice about her.

\- Your hair is pink.

A bigger smile graced her soft features when the man stated the obvious with almost a skeptical tone, almost as if he could not believe to have a pretty, young girl with pink hair, Princess Serenity's crescent moon tattooed on her forehead and starlight eyes in front of him.

But she was no dream, no product of a really bad night and a probably poor quality beer, but a fangirl who loved cartoon and videogames maybe a little too much and a little too openly.

\- I even have the sisters Halliwell's triquetra tattooed on my palm. Here - she chirped happily, turning her right hand to make him see the tattoo on her palm before smiling again and cupping her chin with sharp, starlight eyes kindly offered by the online shop where she bought her collection of contact lenses – But let's not talk about little, boring me. Let's talk about you. What's her name?

Peter Novak, he had mumbled his name while opening his coffee between a grunt and a curse, was an engineer.

A smart one, judging by the good quality of his sweater and the expensive leather bag forsaken on the little table, a smart boy with the heart of a fair maiden that had just been crushed by a beautiful woman the poor man kept on calling his first and tragic love between sobs and pitiful whimpers, describing with bitter words the red-head beauty who worked as a receptionist in his company who had cheated on him with the security man for a year.

A man who was prettier than him, but ugly poor Peter was not, he was a little too thin, but she reassured him with a gentle pat on his hand that he was thin as a healthy person could be, not thin as a malnourished man from the Burundi, a comment that tore him a weak laugh the man stifled with a choked sound before openly crying in front of her, grasping her hands as if she was the only thing that kept him afloat, a support she could not deny him, not even if she had wanted given the way he was crushing her fingers, forcing her to wait patiently for him to end his tale.

And it took a _while_ for him to stop crying, because, by the time he finished crying, and sobbing, and crushing her hand in his tight grip, the young teenage couple had already left the cafeteria hand in hand, Fei Fong, the chef, had already been sent home and Alan was hovering behind the counter with a frown so deep that it would have probably scarred his face in a perpetual scowl if wrinkles could have dug his dark skin.

\- Here.

The soft whisper tore her away from the battle of scowls she had waged with her boss while the young man was collecting himself, her eyes gentler as poor Peter finally let go of her hands, pushing in her long fingers something that, for a moment, made her frown in confusion before her mind could squeal in joy when she _recognized_ the title on the front.

.- We were going to make a remake in better quality. This is only a prototype, but you can have it. For listening to my rambling and well... let me crying a river.

She clutched the gift to her chest with an incredulous smile that made her cheeks hurt, waving him goodbye since she could not find the right words to thank him for the unexpected gift, a silence that Alan, now at her back with a stiff hand on her shoulder had had to misinterpret by the hard inflection of his voice.

\- Did the whimpering girl give you some kind of drug?

\- In a sense – she whispered under her breath, still too dumbstruck to understand the consequence of her words, but even before the old man could let a growl left his throat, his nagging employee silenced his outburst when she shoved _literally_ in his face the small, plastic square with a squeal.

\- Look at this boss! Isn't it awesome?

Slapping away the offending thing from his face, the man tried to see what could make her so giddy, but when he finally focused his eyes on the letters and the 18+ in the corner of the plastic square, a heavy sight was all he conceded before slapping her head with the back of his hand, grumbling under his breath to go home and finish that madness.

Giggling like a school girl who had just met her crush out of pure luck, she reached the bicycle she had chained to the lamp street outside the cafeteria with thrilled steps, untangling the strings of her helmet that resembled _a lot_ Capitan America's shield before securing it on her head, one, because she was a responsible adult who liked to be safe, and two, because her poor mean of transport would have probably died on her at any moment judging by the squeaking of its gears, and she could at least prevent herself a head injury.

Actually, a bump in her head would have probably given to the people who already considered her a little out of her mind the justifications of all her quirks, but she was the way she was by nature, whatever psychological explanation or behavior disorder people and her parents could think she had to justify her strange behavior, her odd appearances, her odd habit to let herself be carried away by things that did not exist, that they considered childish, silly, given her age. Strange.

Strange as were her dresses, and jacket, and way of speaking.

Strange as were her hair.

Strange as was her inability to focus on _real_ life.

A peculiar child.

Nova had always been one.

Even her name, despite the pretty meaning, had not been chosen because her father had thought about the explosion of a beautiful star in seeing her for the first time.

Actually, if she had to say the truth, James had _scoffed_ upon seeing her, choosing Nova as her name only because, just as the nuclear fusion generated from the nova, she had burned to ashes her father's chances to go abroad to study the sky with his crazy groups of friends.  
She had the sweetest of the dads. _Really_.  
And yet, deep down, she could _almost_ understand him, someway.  
She had forced him to stay in Texas, to be a father, she had trapped him in a life he had not chosen, or wanted, and, deep down, despite the love James showed in his own contorted and clumsy way, he had never forgiven her for that.

But Nova was ok with that, she was ok with almost all the things she had faced in her life.

Her mother fussing.

Her father fidgeting.

Her inability to finish something, to chose a path, to decide what to do with her life.

In her defense, she had tried, _really hard_, to do something useful, something socially admirable, she had _even_ tried college before giving up and returning home more confused than before about what to do with her life.

Because Nova liked many things but loved none of them. _Just like people._

She liked her customers, her parents, her boss, but loved them? Well, love was a _huge_ word.

She was used to looking at things and people from afar, just like when she was playing her games, when she could move her character without really involving herself personally. Emotionally.

And mind you, she was a really expressive person who liked hugs and kisses, it was only that she had always expressed her affection to _people who actually did not even exist_, people who, through the screen, had seen her grow. And crying. And laughing.

It was almost wrong to admit, but she felt more attached to the fictional characters of her books and the heroes of her video games than on real people.

Sad, wasn't it?

Yes, it was sad, sad that she had cried herself to sleep when Aerith had been stabbed by Sephiroth the asshole in Final Fantasy VII, not even shedding a single tear to the funeral of her grandmother Molly.

It was sad that she could be soothed by songs that were not meant for her, but for something else, for someone else, songs that, however, could ease her pain, her loneliness, because her mother had never had the time or the patience to sing her a lullaby.

It was sad, it was wrong, but it was the truth.

She had been raised by them. By books and movies. And games. Not by real people.

By parents who were always too busy to play with her, parents who were always too tired to listen to her, parents who were already frustrated with their own life to see how lonely had become hers.

Because Nova had always felt lonely.

And misunderstood.

Out of place.

And she was not talking about a single moment in the day, she was talking about her_ whole_ life. Because she felt lonely at home with her parents, at work with her colleges, every day, everywhere, and it was frustrating, feeling so out of place all the time, with so many people around her, almost as if she _wanted_, as if she _liked_ to feel that way, to feel like a _misfit_, but she didn't like it, she didn't want it, she just...just wanted to understand where she belonged, _if_, she belonged to something, somewhere, but Nova had always feared that she would have never founded it.

Her place in that world.

Not now, at the age of twenty, when she should have eaten the world, not on her deathbed, when she would have been full of regret and wrinkles to weigh her down, but judging by how things were going in the world, her deathbed wasn't so far away either.

The real world, the world where her parents wanted her to live, was a horrible and dangerous place.

Despite her oddity, Nova was not so naïve not to see what had become of them, what people were doing to the world, to other people, to the planet.

She had seen too many movies about the way mother nature would have avenged herself for mankind's cruelty not to see where things were going, where, they were going.

_Self-destruction._

They all lived with a countdown upon their heads, death and madness behind every corner, hidden under the hood of a tramp who could have stabbed you for a handful of dollars, concealed in the smiling eyes of a bored teen who would have thrown in your face acid only to record it on his phone.

It was almost hilarious how people considered her need to find comfort in fantasy lands and imaginative characters silly, when what surrounded her was so...so horrible.

Unfair. And ugly.

There were no heroes in her time, her world, _but she needed them_, she needed something _different_, something that could make her believe in magic, in beauty, something that could give her hope, and she had it, despite it all. She had learned to be brave. To be hopeful. To be stronger. Thanks to them, to those fictional characters who had made her realize that there was still beauty in the world, if you search for it, that you could always change things, if you tried.

That you could always do the brave thing, if you wanted.

That everyone could be a hero for themselves first, and then for the world, if you believed in it.

Even in her world. A world that was wrong, ugly, barren, a world where they were going to die in a probably horrible way, but Nova wasn't scared of that. Of dying.

Actually, she was curious about what would have come next.

Because, maybe, the next time, she would have been luckier, happier.

Maybe, the next time, she would have really had pink hair, or a moon tattooed on her forehead.

Maybe, the next time, she would have found her place in the world, and people to love so deeply to lose herself, and a place to call home.

But as she turned the corner with a heavy sigh upon her lips, as her eyes found the drunk, flashy dressed woman who shakily was trying to cross the road while the people on the sidewalk did not even try to warn her about the car that was coming in front of her, Nova could only feel the thundering of her heart pulsing in her throat before her feet began to push angrily on the pedal to give her speed.

When the dark sky filled her eyes and the screeching of wheels crushed her ears, Nova knew to be dying even before the drunk woman she had pushed aside could take her bleeding head in her hand while crying for help, crawling her to her chest like a small child, and it was then, that people began to shout, to notice that something was wrong, _but it was too late._

They had waited too long, and she was going to die because no one had given a shit about the drunk woman expect her. Selfish to the end, weren't they?

What was the difference between her and the drunk woman?

Why they could shout for her and not for a poor girl who had drunk a little too much over a broken heart?

Because she was younger?

Because she was smaller?

Because she seemed frailer?

Full of shit. _All of them_.

And yet, Alan would have probably had a heart attack.

Her parents would have cried a little.

And maybe, even the teenage couple would have been sad for her death, but Nova was losing too much blood to keep on caring about them, about the world she was leaving with a sigh of relief, her eyes focused on the dark sky with a tenderness that made people shout a lot more.

But she was becoming deaf, she was becoming blind, _she was dying_, and she was not scared of that.

Someone lifted her from the ground, and it was then that she heard it, a soft thud on the ground.

The blue light of the ambulance flashed in her eyes, making her squint her eyelashes in irritation, but she could still see the gift that poor, thin Peter had given her, forsaken in the pool of her own blood.

_How sad._

It was unfair that she could not play it at least once, that she was dying in that horrible way, even if she had saved a life, even if she had done her hero thing, but maybe, in her afterlife, _things would have been better _she tried to comfort her troubled soul, patting herself mentally.

Maybe she would have been reborn as a noble knight in a magical land. Or an elf. _Or a dragon_. That would have been _so_ cool.

She would have been something magical for sure. _Something badass_, **yes**, it would have been the perfect reward for her bravery, she nodded to herself as the darkness began to surround her body and her mind, making her losing contact with the world she was not so sad to lose.

She had to be rewarded for her good deeds in life, some way, **they had to**, and if not, Nova would have thrown a hell of a fit when the time to wake up would have come for her, or she would have pouted.

_A lot._

* * *

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Fear not this night. You will not go astray.  
Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

Awaken from a quiet sleep. Hear the whispering of the wind.

Awaken as the silence grows in the solitude of the night.

_( Fear not this night – Guild Wars)_

_Dhu_.

Between all the spectacular and awesome ways with which she could have welcomed her new life. _Her restart._

Between all the things she could have said, or done, or thought, to express her mood for her rebirth, that dumb _dhu_ was the first word her disoriented mind stuttered when, in opening her eyes tiredly, eyes that Nova _hoped_ for the safety of whatever deity that governed the world, were magical as she had prayed while dying, she founded, well, she founded, founded..._nothing_.

_Really_, nothing. _Nothing at all._

Nothing to stare at if not void. Nothing to hear if not silence. Void. Absolute void. _All around her._

_Seriously?_

_**Seriously?**_

_Dhu._ _**Yes.**_ _**Dhu.**_ **NO**. _**Double Dhu.**_ _**Triple Dhu.**_ _**One million Dhu**_ because, right now, that silly, dumb _dhu_ was the right thing to say, to think, while Nova kept on watching _nothing,_ lying down on probably _nothing_ with the laziness of a bear that had _nothing_ to do except listening to _nothing_.

Cranky, wasn't she?

_Oh yeah_. She was feeling quite cranky at the moment, and disappointed and _pissed off_.

**Really**, pissed off.

Because, _really_, she had thought about something more..._more_, you know?

Where were her fireworks?

And her holy light?

And her handsome knight? Or was _she_ the handsome knight?

A quick squeeze on her chest reassured her that even if she could not be a handsome knight, she could still be a pretty one with the plus of a beautiful pair of tits.

She had beautiful tits, after all. _Honestly_.

But returning to the main problem at hands, a knight should have worn a heavy armor, and a sword, and a helm, but the soft fabric under her palm was too dull to belong to the magical land where she was _supposed_ to wake up.

She was still wearing a pair of dark jeans and her favorite shirt, with Gandalf's quote _"You should not pass"_ printed in large letters on her chest, and even if she _loved_ her shirt with passion, Nova was still disappointed, _utterly disappointed_.

Disappointed that _nothing_ had happened to her, that _nothing_ had changed, that _nothing_ was what she had right now.

Because she was dead, _of course she was_, but she had probably been caught in some boring mesh of the universe where there was nothing to do except stare in the void.

_The joy_. **Really**.

But she was already feeling tired and getting a little bored to stare in the void and _do nothing_, even if she had woken up for less than ten minutes, but what could she say? She was a girl who got easily bored.

It was therefore with a heavy sigh and a showy pout, because she had promised to pout _**a lot**_ if the world had not rewarded her for her bravery, that Nova pulled herself up with an annoyed growl, watching boringly around before starting to walk to nowhere.

And she walked, a lot, and walked, and walked, and walked, and could you try to guess what she had found after walking, and walking, and walking?

Guess what? _Nothing_.

\- Hurray – Nova whispered sarcastically to herself for guessing right, raising her right arm in a fake gesture of joy before crossing her arms over her chest with a pout so long that her jaw would have touched the dark floor if she had been a cartoon, but she was not.

Actually, she was quite confused about what she was.

Dead. That one was for sure. And pissed, but she was stating the obvious now, but what of her form?

A spirit?

_It could be_. She could be that.

After all, she was walking a lot without feeling tired, or hungry, or thirsty, so it could make sense.

She could be a spirit, or a wandering soul, but what else?

Nova began to massage her chin in a pensive gesture while her brain battered itself in trying to give a sense to that madness, trying to explain her essence, while she kept on walking because, try to guess? _She had nothing else to do._

It was therefore quite unexpected for her when, at some point, between a frown and a scowl, she banged her forehead against a wall.

_An invisible wall_, because when she got back on her feet after falling on her butt quite painfully, she found nothing to shout at if not the void.

And soon, from pissed that she had been, Nova became quite angry, and crazy. _Really_, crazy.

Because it was _outrageous_ for her that she could not even walk where she wanted since walking was _the only thing she could do._

So she lost it. _Literally_.

The first crash against the invisible wall was followed by a huff when she crashed on the ground, on her butt, _again_, but she was a stubborn girl, so, instead of simply throwing herself at the wall a second time, she began to take a run before throwing herself to the invisible wall.

It wasn't going well, honestly.

Because she kept on falling, and huffing, and screaming at the void offending things before trying again, and again, _and again_, because she could not die, _because she had nothing else to do_, because even in death she was still stubborn like a horse, and, especially, because she could go _wherever_ she wanted in _her_ afterlife.

An afterlife that had begun quite badly, but when she finally succeeded in whatever she was trying to succeeded, Nova could not even appreciate her small victory when, in falling on her knees, this time forward, _hurray_, she came face to face with **a giant spider**.

_Yes_. You had read well.

**A giant, drooling spider**.

Even if spiders should not have drooled, or be that big, or that hairy, for the matter, but Nova, despite the proximity of the ugly thing, despite his rotten breath in her face, or the fact that she had her hands in one of his eight eyeballs, _eww_, Nova could only get angrier, more pissed off, because that was her afterlife. _Damn it_!

And in her afterlife there were _no_ drooling spiders. _She was immovable on that one._

It was then that, while she was still fuming, and cursing and scowling, that something strange happened, as if stranger things had not already happened, but Nova was positive that _nothing_ could be worse than **a giant, drooling spider**.

However, when the said giant, drooling spider began to screech in pain while its skin turned black, as if some invisible flame was burning it from inside, vanishing after a while in a burst of dust, so, suddenly, _without a reason_, Nova did not know what to do, or what to think, before bringing both her hands to her mouth when she felt suddenly nauseous, and it was then,_right then_, that Nova knew that something _horrible_ had just happened.

Because a stomach ache could be the result of a couple of things she listed in her head not to hyperventilate, letting the dark floor welcoming once again her aching butt while she raised the first finger to count the plausible reason behind her sickness and her need to retch.

Her period, _but she was dead_, so it was not a possibility she could consider.

Disgust, but despite the ugliness of the spider, _she had seen worse_.

So, the only reasonable explanation was that... that...

\- _Did I just magically eat a spider with my bare hands?_

If she had not been so disgusted by the thought, Nova would have even laughed for how scandalized she had sounded, but she was too preoccupied to make herself sure not to have teeth on her palm to care about the way she had sounded.  
There was no one to listen to her anyway.

Frantically, she began to turn her hands back and forth to see if something strange had happened to them, but her hands were still pale, _still normal hands_, something that suddenly lost importance when the screeching in front of her made Nova aware of three, important things.

One, it was not so dark as before. A green, clouded sky was above her head.

Two, she was still sitting, but on something more solid now. _Stones_. Nothing could hurt her butt like that if not hard stones.

And three, _guess what?_ The screeching didn't belong to a box of adorable squirrels, but to a pack of horrible, giant, drooling spiders that, instead of advancing and eating her alive for having done something, she was still a little confused about what she had done, because, _seriously_, she had done _nothing_ to their companion, were looking at her at a distance with distrust and, wait a minute, _was that horror_?

Horror? Were they horrified _by her_?

\- _Excuse me? _Have you seen your face in the mirror, guys? If we were competing for the ugliest thing in the world, you would have won the first place hands down! _All of you_!

A piercing shriek followed her outburst, but Nova ignored them, and, for the moment, what she had done, again, _nothing_, but she had not the time to argue with herself, she had more important things to do than concerning her poor confused mind with bursting spiders or their insulted sounds.

_As if giant spiders could be insulted_, but their presence, even if useless and a little distracting, could still be useful.

Giant spiders weren't common in her world, therefore she had not been reborn in it, _thank God_.

So where?

Where was she?

Mirkwood maybe? There were giant spiders in Tolkien's woods, _a lot of them_, but in Middle Earth, the sky wasn't green, _so nope_. No Middle Earth. A pity, really.

She would have liked to mess around Middle Earth a little, but she had not been so lucky, so, returning to her problem, where was she?

Ruins surrounded her, and, oh yes, _the giant spiders_, how could she forget them?

So, in summary, she was _probably_ a spirit, she had _probably_ shattered a magical reality, a reality where there were giant spiders, green sky and, if she squinted her eyes, she could even see stairs in the clouds.

_Wait a minute_. Green sky. A ruined city. Monster. Silence.

_Oh_**. Oh.** _**Oh.**_

She knew where she was.

_Oh if she knew_, and she was out of herself with happiness.

The spiders hissed in alarm when she jumped to her feet with a squeal of joy, but Nova ignored them and their retreat to focus her attention on the stairs she could see in the clouds.

Squealing so loud would have been a disrespect for the silence of the holy ground where she _knew to be standing_, but she was too excited to mind her manners, hopping on each stair with a squeal and a giggle, clapping her hands together when she saw _it_ at the end of the circular area she had reached.

The remain of the famous Golden City. And there, between dust and rocks, a throne.

_The Maker's throne._

Giggling with her hands pressed on her mouth to muffle the sound, Nova tiptoed to the throne, not because she was worried about someone or something to suddenly walk out from the rubbles, she knew that spirits and monsters were scared of that place, but because she was fighting off her necessity to sit on it.

On the throne.

Glancing around and _above_, because she was considering sitting on the throne of a _God_, Nova made sure that _no one_ was looking, before reaching out.

When she felt the cold metal under her fingertips, a squeal left her lips even before she could _really_ touch the throne, but the hand pressed on her mouth muffled it, allowing her to try another contact, and when no bolt came from the green sky to strike her for her sin, Nova decided on doing it.

On sitting on the throne. _She had to._

It was cold, and a little uncomfortable, _but hello_, she was sitting on a throne made of _gold_, of course it was uncomfortable, but when she pressed her back on the throne and her fingers cupped the front, Nova could not prevent herself to smile and, just because she had not been profane _enough_, to swing her legs back and forth like a little girl since she was a little too small to reach the floor with her toes.

She was sitting in the throne of the Maker.

_She had been reborn in Dragon age._

Nova dried with the hem of her shirt the tears that had filled her eyes when the weigh of the discovery made her so happy that her heart could burst, but she was already dead, so it didn't really matter.

Because she had been reborn in her favorite game, her _first_, game, and she could not be happier than that.

Dragon age and its character had been many things during her childhood.

Cullen Rutherford had been her first crush.

Cassandra Pentaghast had been her first friend.

Solas had been the first asshole she had learned to hate.

And then, there had been him.

_Rigel_.

A fat tear ran down her cheek when she thought about him, recalling a memory that still hurt a little.

_Her Rigel_.

A real tsundere that one.

A fond laugh tickled her throat as she let her mind wander to the fondest memory of her childhood spent on playing Dragon age while her parents kept on bickering on what to do with her.

She had spent quite a while to think about him.

She had chosen his name after two weeks of pondering. The name of a star, since she was the explosion of one.

Then, she had imagined his childhood. He had had a happy one obviously.

In her head, he had been born in heaven. He had been loved. _A lot_. _She_ had loved him a lot.

Then, she had imagined his appearance.

Pink hair, the same as hers, and an elf, of course he was an elf.

_She loved elves_, especially magical elves, because he had magic too, and even a crescent moon on his forehead, just like her.

She could almost see him behind her eyelashes if she closed her eyes.

Tall. Very tall. Long limbs. Strong shoulders. Gentle hands. A kind, young, beautiful tsundere.

She had been so proud of him, of the things he had done, and when her mother, fed-up with the time she spent in front of her computer, had thrown away the game even before she could have finished it, _even before she could have said goodbye_, Nova had been so burned by the loss, to decide not to try to love something else, anymore.

Because, if she had felt so lost and desperate in losing someone _who did not even exist_, how would have she reacted if she had loved and lost someone in real life?

Therefore, her first and last broken heart had been over a fictional character she had loved as family, a love that, after that, she had never been able to give to someone else, not even to her parents. _To no one_.

She would have loved no one like him.

_Like Rigel_.

It was insane, it was wrong, but Nova had created him, she had chosen his name, his story, and nothing could be compared to it.

People usually said that nothing could be compared to the love of a mother, and, in a sense, she had been his, Rigel's mother.

She still was. _She always would have been one, for him._

_Thud._

A frown crumpled her features when the wind brought with it the sound, something she ignored with her eyes still closed, because she was still emotionally unstable, _she would have cried_, if she had opened her eyes, and even if she was still alone, she did not want to see it. Her tears.

The fade was probably playing with her mind given the frail state of heart, but she would not have been tricked, she was smarter than that, she was, or she believed to be, because, despite her belief, when Nova opened her eyes, a tear escaped her rigid control when she saw _him_ lying on the ground.

\- _No._

Her fingers curled angrily around the golden throne to vent the turmoil in her head, but she did not try to move or to reach out, she was even trying not to breathe.

Because it wasn't happening. _It could not._

And yet, there he was.

_Rigel._ **Just** in front of her eyes, **just** appeared from nowhere, **just** after she had thought about him, a pale, long shape that her eyes were scanning in search of injuries when the concern took the place of the panic and confusion in her heart, but he had no one.

He was asleep, or so he appeared, _so she hoped_, trying, at the same time, to find a reason behind his sudden appearance.

But was it sudden? Or was she at the right time in the wrong place?

_When_ exactly had she appeared in the game?

A ball of fear curled up in her stomach when she heard the screeching of the spiders too closer for her tastes, something that was not accidental, _it could not be a coincidence_, and it was with that certainty that Nova hopped down from her throne, running towards the body forsaken on the floor that she, however, did not try to touch.

No. _Not yet_. It was still a little too much to process, but she did not have the time to feel shy, not when she knew that soon, even if they hated that place, the spiders would have tried to follow Rigel, and there was no shiny person to reach out for him, this time.

There was only her. _Shit_.

_Where the hell was she now?_

Andraste should have sent Rigel to the breach and then to Thedas, _to safety_, he should not have been here, asleep, with her, he should have been running for his life, not taking a nap.

\- Ehy! Big Guy! Where are you? - she screamed even before she could think about the fact that she was being rather rude to a _God_, but she _knew _that he was still here, somewhere, _the fucking Maker_, but Nova did not care about it. Not when Rigel, her Rigel, the hero she had created, and loved, and cherished in her heart was going to be eaten by giant, drooling spiders.

\- Can you hear me Big Guy? Where the hell are you? Do something, _damn it!_

She was crying now, in rage or in fear she did not know, but she did not care, because they were coming, no one was answering, and she was starting to lose it. Again.

\- Hey! I am talking to you! I know you are here! Bring your shining ass here and save my son, or I swear to _you_that I will-

\- Mother?

Her breath hitched in her throat when she heard it, feeble and frail as a crystal flower, but a whisper and a voice she could recognize, a voice she had always heard in her dream, in the middle of the night, when she had felt too lonely to be on her own.

A voice she followed with her eyes, and then, _with a trembling heart_, finding a pair of confused grey eyes that were trying to focus on her, and a hand, weak and frail that Nova took with a hiccup when she let herself fall on the ground, collecting in her arms Rigel's head.

Her heart stuttered when she felt him squeeze her hand in response, and something akin to despair flashed in her eyes when she saw the tears gathering in Rigel's eyes when he finally saw her.

When Rigel seemed _to recognize_ her.

_To remember her._

The fingers that touched her cheek were gentle, _real_, hesitant, as if Rigel, her beautiful Rigel, could not believe to have her with him._Again_.

A laugh escaped her lips when she thought about hours before, when she had been complaining about the emptiness of the places, of her feeling while now, now she could not bear the opposite, _what she had asked for._

\- Mother?

\- I am here. _I am here._

Talking to him was something Nova could not even try to avoid, something her heart would not have allowed her to ignore, but when she saw Rigel smiling weakly between the tears she was trying to collect in her palm, stroking his cheeks in a reassuring way, Nova _knew_ that she would have stayed with him until the end of the world, spiders or not spiders, that she would have protected him from anything and anyone, that she would have burned the world herself if, in doing that, she would have kept him safe.

_It had to be that_, what women said to have felt once becoming mothers, a love she had not really understand, not with Anne as an example, but now Nova could understand it, she could feel it.

_Unconditional love._

A love that could make you fight the world for it, a love that could make you sacrifice anything for it, a love that could make you stronger, braver, invincible, and it was so that Nova felt as the screeching became too close, her grip on Rigel too strong, but then, she heard it.

A woman's voice.

Gentle. Soft. Familiar.

\- Gods sure take their time.

A gentle laugh tinkled in the air when she huffed the words between her tears, but Nova knew that now, now, _she could let him go._  
\- Mother?

Startled by the raw pain she could feel in Rigel's horrified whisper as she stood, _as she let him go_, Nova tried hard not to think about it, about the way Rigel's eyes became lucid, about the clumsy way he tried to sit up to reach her, but she was already walking towards the stairs at the end of which she could see the spiders crawling on each other with the hope to reach the boy to her back.

A grunt left her throat as she squared her shoulders, puffing out her chest to make them see the threat on her chest to _back off_, because quoting Gandalf the Grey, _they should not have passed_, not on her dead body, and since she had none, because she was a spirit now, that resumed their chances to reach him.

\- Mother?

_Don't turn around. Don't turn around._

Nova kept on chanting those words when she felt him move on her back, when Rigel begged her to come back, _not to leave_, but she could not yield now, after, maybe, she would have found a way to rejoin him, to finally hug him, _oh how much she wanted to hug him_, but not now. No. Not now.

Now Andraste had to send him away, and she, she had work to do, and a lot of spiders to eat, she just hoped to have a stomach big enough for all of them.

\- Mother?

\- You go first Rigel, mom will come after you – she heard herself saying above the screeching and the howling of the wind as a blinding light surrounded Rigel and she took her first step towards the hordes of monsters with her hands in front of her face, ready to do what she must.

And, as she heard Rigel screaming for her to go with him, not to leave him, as _finally_ Andraste did her job, Nova could not help herself on quoting Majin Bu sentence as she hopped on the stairs with a big smile on her face, chanting under her breath _Me eat you up_ with a voice so creepy and a look so crazy that, if she had seen herself in a mirror, she would have fainted for the shock.

Or, thing more probable, she would have chocked herself with her own laughter.

* * *

You knew what they said about God, right?

_No?_ Oh, _come on_! **The Big Guy?**

You know, taller than a skyscraper? Brighter than the sun? The good bearded man? And No. **No**. _You._ _**You.**_ The one who had just raised his hand. You could put it down now, she was not talking about Santa Claus, but someone higher, much _higher_ than him.

Did it ring a bell? Still no?

_Good_, because they had been wrong about him, _all of them_, or the Big Guy of her world was different from the Big Guy of this one.

Because she had met him. _Yup._ She had met the Maker, or, if she had to be honest, she had _forced_ him to go searching for her before she could traumatize his poor kids irredeemably.

To put it simply, she had attracted his attention, and in attracting his attention she meant that, after eating _a lot_ of spiders and other things she had found on the way, Nova was not a picky one when it came to eating, _actually_, she had begun to like the way monsters twice her size scattered around in seeing her, she had begun to shout out his name, and to nag him with horrible nicknames and terrible jokes until he had come to her, truth to be told, he had _almost_ trampled on her, and hers was not _a figure of speech._

Because the Big Guy was _really_ a **Big Guy.** _Figure._

Nova had had to crack her neck _to try_ to have a look at his face, but her eyes had just stopped to his chin before she fell on her butt in trying to look higher, to look him the eyes, eyes that were a beautiful shade of blue, and red, and, have you ever seen a rainbow during a clouded day?

Yes? Good, because the Big Guy had that kind of eyes, so strange but beautiful that for a moment Nova had been too shocked to speak or to rebel when the Maker had scooped her in his big hand to bring her to whenever he was staying at the moment, but, before vanishing, Nova had had the time to hear sighs of relief in the shadows, or so she had thought, she was still not so sure about that one, anyway, returning to her tale.

The Big Guy had brought her to his hideout, and if you were thinking about an ethereal place with fluffy clouds, golden gates and marble stairs you would have been wrong, and disappointed, _just like she had been_, because, when the Big Guy had dropped, _**yes**_, you had read well, _**when he had dropped her**_, Nova's butt had met ground, not even the softer kind, and instead of a white palace with crystal tower, a blinding halo to surround it and a choir of angels as alarm devise, what her eyes had found had been a hut.

_**A hut!**_

Grunting had been stronger than her at that point, she had even pointed at the thing with her mouth agape, gesticulating with her arms because _seriously?__**Seriously?**_

Was it there that he had gone for _centuries_? _**In a hut?**_

The people in Thedas would not have believed her if she had told them that their God had become a _bonzo_, she _too_ was having some problem on accepting it before the big door, because, remember? _He was a Big Guy_, so the hut, even if it was still a boring hut in her opinion, the hut had to be big enough for him not to bang his forehead on the chandelier, he had at least to have _that_, right? But where was she?

Oh, right, _the big door._

So, when the big door had opened and the tall and petite figure had come out to greet them, Nova had not **even** tried to hide the _knowing_ smile that had puffed her cheeks while Andraste kneeled in front of her to pick her up with a soft smile.

_A fluffy thing._

That one had been her first impression of the prophet of the Maker.

Beautiful, _obviously she was beautiful_, with the sky in her eyes and a crown of gold on her head, a beautiful young lady with a beautiful big heart, as opposed to the Maker.

Nova had _stressed_ it, because she did not forget easily a wrong made towards her person, and dropping her from what could have been the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper had been a wrong she would not have forgotten for a long while.

Even if she had not hurt herself, even if the Maker had known that she could not die, _but still_, she would have held a grudge against him, but Andraste, Andraste was another matter.

It was impossible to dislike such a beautiful woman who had the sun as smile, but when she had placed her gently on the huge table inside the hut, and Nova had **intentionally** gazed at the Maker to make him understand that that, _that_ was the right way to treat a _lady_ like her, she had liked her more.

_Sheer kindness._

Andraste was maybe the kindest person she had ever met in her life, _and she had her for less than an hour_, but there was something in the way she moved, in the way she looked, in the way she smiled that made her heart melt and sight in bliss.

The Maker was a lucky bastard to have found such a beautiful woman since he was so grumpy, because the Maker was a grumpy man.

Did you know Grumpy of Snow White? And Grouchy Smurf? And Scrudge? And Severus Snape during his worst day?

_Good_. The Maker was _worse_ than a Fusion Dance between the four.

_Seriously_, even his appearance was grumpy, _as if appearance could be grumpy_, but that explained how odd-looking he was, still beautiful, but odd-looking. _And grumpy._

_John_, she had chosen to call him that way because The Maker was too long and she was _too lazy_ to think about another name, something for which John had thrown her a dark look when she had informed him of her decision, but returning to what she was saying, she had a bad habit to digress, right? So...what were they talking about? A yes, _John_, he was all dark.

Black hair.

Black eyes.

Black beard.

Nova had asked if he was black even _down there_, but John had proved to be a modest and shy God when he had stuttered a _no_, blushing a little while Andraste's kind laugh made his blush deeper and her laughter louder.

They were a sweet and odd pair, but she still preferred Andraste, _absolutely_, and it was to her that Nova had asked the answer she sought, answers that the kind woman had given with a patient smile even while Nova kept on gasping, and laughing and gasping again before rolling her eyes when she finally had discovered what she had become.

_A black hole._

She had become a fucking black hole. _Man_. And _all_ because of her name, because, as they often said in cartoons and movies, a name was a powerful thing, and when Nova had ceased to be, when her soul had **exploded**, when she had _refused_ to be reborn, she had become a black hole.

A rarity, according to sweet Andraste, because, _usually_, a normal person wanted to be reborn, to be part of the cycle of life, but not a stubborn soul like her, but it was ok, _really_, because, after a good night spent on watching the fireflies, because John's house was located in a cute, little garden with a pond that showed the world beneath and a sky full tiny, pretty lights, Nova had thought that it was not so bad, being a black hole.

It could have been worse, _really worse_.

She could have been called Rose, and could you find a life more boring than the one of a rose?

_A rose_.

So okay, she was okay with it, with being a black hole.

It was _obvious_ that a soul could not simply trespass realm just because it wanted to, there were rules, in the universe, rules she had been able to break somehow, perhaps even by accident, upsetting whatever order existed with her attempt to do as she wanted anyway, becoming some kind of reality's alteration.

Andraste had explained to her that she had become _something else_, something that did not belong to any reality except her own, it was like she was a mini-game in the big play of life where she was the one to decide who could play with her.

She had no rules to bind her, no place to belong to, a fucking mini-universe all to her own, and it had been a little too much for her.

She had cried, and wailed, and sniffed, covering with the sleeves of her shirt her eyes, so not to see the pity in their gazes, wailing like a little girl, because, deep down, she had always and would have always been one.

A little girl who wanted to belong to something, _anything_, but the worst part, because there was _always_ a worse part, was that she could not _even_cry in despair or feeling too upset, because her emotion, the raw ones, could change the gravity around her, and it was a bad thing, a _really_ bad thing.

Because it could alter reality, and with the alteration of the reality she could have swallowed the world, becoming a gash in the universe that, in the end, would have attracted everything in her gravitational field, wiping out any form of life, **just because she was feeling a little depressed.**

_What dumb superpower._

She had read something similar in one of her high school's book, how the black hole was a celestial body with a gravitational field so strong not to let go anything, _not even light_.

Cool, right?

No. Not so much, _not anymore_, but Andraste had been so sweet and patient and sympathetic with her that, when the prophet had asked her to think about happy things, she had done that, because moping was boring, and even if upset and broken-hearted, Nova was still a young woman who got bored really easily.

So she had began to think about happier thing, about the hut that, in the end, was _almost_ cute, about John who, despite the grumpiness, was a big teddy bear at heart, and the pond that could make her see Rigel, and seeing Rigel was the happiest thing of them all, something she could have done for all her life, a pity that she could only be perceived by him as a distant voice in the wind, but it was ok, _for now._

Because she would have found a way to reunite with him in Thedas, even if John had been a cruel teddy bear when he had explained to her that it was _impossible_, especially for what she had become.

She had become some kind of abstract entity that could not be caught in the rules that governed the world, or, in more humble words, a sort of balloon with its string cut that would have kept on floating in the air for eternity, a really, _really_ sad balloon, but she would have thought about some kind of ballast to make her stop her wandering, she had the patience, she had the stubbornness, and the time, _she had a lot of that one_.

In the meantime, she would have stayed with the cute couple, Andraste already loved her and John, _well_, John would have loved her with time, he was already treating her like a puppy someone had abandoned on the road in a rainy day. It was a start.

So she started.

A room, Andraste had given her one, and a seat on the table, she was too small to have her chair anyway, in fact, Nova feared that John would have sat on her accidentally, or on _purpose_ when she was being too annoying, so she was fine with that, she liked her spot.

And the pond. _She loved the pond_. It made her see Rigel, _her son_. It was still a little strange to think about him like that, but she had created him, and about creating something, Nova had discovered that, just as she could destroy things, she could give life to things.

She was a fucking mini-universe, after all.

So she had begun with a flower, because she was a romantic person at heart, giving it to Andraste because she was too sweet, and to John because he was grumpy, and grumpy people needed flowers.

Then she had tried something harder, something that had required a lot of work and time, but the _pizza_ had been worth it, even John had eaten one piece, and he was usually very picky with food, something Nova had found childish, because food was food, and sometimes you could not decide what to eat.

So she had planted beans in his gardens. And spinach. And zucchini.

She had become a really good farmer, to tell the truth, even John had seemed to appreciate her more, but she had got tired of that too, so she had tried other things, many, _many_ other things, until, finally, she had done everything that could come to mind, and mind you, it was not because she had little imagination.

She had a really _big_ imagination, but in John's hideout, the time flowed fast, a little too fast for her tastes.

_Three centuries._

She had spent three centuries in John's hideout, two of which she had been a farmer, then a painter, then a cook, then a singer, while, in Thedas, her son had spent not more than two weeks, reaching Haven without other delays, _not since she had been there._

Because there had been breaches, a lot of them since when Regil had been taken by Cassandra and escorted to Haven, but things had not gone as in the game, not with her there.

First thing, Rigel had not even been imprisoned, _oh no_.

The day her son had appeared in Thedas, even before the soldiers could _even_ touch him, Nova had threatened them to _eat_ them and their horses if they had breathed closer to him in the wrong way, and you could not do otherwise when a dark voice in the wind threatened to eat you and your horse, not even big men with big swords.

Cassandra had not flinched in hearing her voice booming in the wind, _but she was a badass_, so Nova had not expected something less from her, but when she had seen Cullen.

_Holy cows._

John had closed his hand around her as if he was squeezing the head of a gum plush toy to prevent her shrilling squeals to reach the beautiful Commander when the vision had been **too much** for her fangirl heart.

_A masterpiece._

Cullen Rutherford was a _masterpiece._

Even covered in snow or demon's retch, better if it had been cream and chocolate she could have licked even from _cough cough_…what was she saying? _A yes_, he was too much, and Nova had had to ask John to wave her face with a tree to cool her down.

Really, _what a man._

_Seriously_, how could you settle down with other men when there was someone _like that_ around?

You simply couldn't, she couldn't, so, when John had asked her what she wanted for her three hundred fiftieth birthday, _she had forced him to celebrate her birthday or she would have kept on nagging him for eternity_, Nova had found a magical portrait of the Commander on her room, and she had squealed, again, because Cullen was a masterpiece. _Period._

But as she was telling before, things had not gone according to the game, and even if it had gone smoothly for a while, Nova had always known, deep down, that there had to be consequences for her actions.

\- How are you feeling?

A grunt escaped her throat when John's quiet whisper reached her with concern clear in his voice, but when Nova felt his big hand on her head and the coolness of his shadow all around her, a hiccup escaped the throat she clasped with a hand to prevent a growl to leave it.

And _no_, she had not become bipolar, it was only that she had begun to understand the consequences of eating disgusting things, and demons weren't the prettiest or healthier things to eat.

And she had eaten _a lot of them_. **She had to**. Rigel could not fight so many of them with his mark, not even with the Inquisition's help, they could not have survived a _whole_ horde of monsters, so, every time a breach had opened in Thedas, Nova had jumped downstairs to prevent _all_ the demon to go out.

Someone had escaped her hunt, a couple of demons her son could fight, but everything in that world was made of energy, and the one Nova had eaten with the Demons had been angry,_rotten_.

The first time she had been sick, it had been after eating a whole bunch of ugly things with horns and razor teeth. She had spent two years in bed mumbling about stomach ache and too much chocolate, Andraste's hand a reassuring weigh on her forehead and John's presence a comforting shadow above her bed.

Rigel had been worried sick, because, even if they could not meet in flesh, she could still make him feel her presence with her voice in the winds or in his sleep.

_Poor thing_. So she had decided to go on a diet, _no more razor teeth for her_, but she could not _always_ choose what to eat, just like now.

It had not been her fault if the razor teeth had tried to open the breach, but she could not even let her son face those sons of a bitch alone. Could she?

No, she could not, so there she was, her eyes full of tears that Nova let fall on her thighs, her forehead pressed against her knees to fight the pain in her belly, the burning in her throat, because, along with their life energy, she did not only eat their essence, but even their emotions, and she supposed that it had not been funny being eaten by a small girl with pink hair.

\- It will get better.

If he had not been so close to her, maybe she would not have even heard his feeble whisper, _but she had_, and it was with a sniff and her sleeves planted in one of her eyes that Nova raised her head.

\- Did it get better?

The weak smile that John gave her was _too_ heartbreaking, too sad for her to be her usual annoying self.

Gently, she used her fingers to grasp a portion of his long tunic while she followed his eyes, finding in the pond what she knew were his children, at the end of things.

Children that had betrayed him, and cursed him, and made wars in his name, killed for his recognition, children John could only love. That was what parents do, after all.

Loving their children to the end, _despite it all_. And John loved each of them. _Even the blasted Corypheus_.

Because he too was his child, and, maybe, he still hoped that, one day, Corypheus would have come back home.

_Poor John._

Nova began to pat his big leg in a reassuring way while she too let her eyes follow the small figures in the pond, pondering about how people were too blind to see that the most precious gift had already been given to them by their creator, and it had not been power, it had been wealth, but something that could not be usually given.

Freedom, or, as they called it in her old world, _free will._

John had given them that. The freedom to love who they wanted, the possibility to be what they wanted to be, to do what their heart dreamed, _to be happy_, and not because he had _made_ them happy, but because they had achieved it on their own, it was _their_ happiness, not his own reflected on them.  
And yet. It was not enough, it would not have ever been enough.

Nova was still a practical person, and she knew, deep down, that people would not have changed.

They would not have ever understood that John had gone away to give them their space, to give them the time to fix what had been broken without his intervention, because his intervention would have made them angrier, more jealous, so he had gone away, but even him, even the Maker could feel alone, and Andraste had been the love John had searched for all his life.

\- They would have martyred her – she heard him whisper almost to himself, watching in the pond the children who he was still waiting, even after all the pain they had caused him - and I can't choose between them and her, _I could never choose._

A lonely, tired soul.

John was just that. _Lonely_. Just like her, just like she had been, but now he had Andraste and _her_.

Because he liked her, Nova was sure of that despite their bickering, and she liked him too, and Andraste, but she needed something more, and she, honestly, was getting bored. _Again_.

A sigh escaped her mouth, and not even the sight of beautiful Cullen could improve her mood, _and it was saying something_, but John's emo vibes were contagious, apparently.

\- For what is worth, I think that you are a good dad.

The hand on her head stilled a little when she left the words leaving her lips in a slow and tired huff, her eyes focused on the small wood casket that Cullen was opening with trembling hands, but she was too tired to notice it, or to see the glint in the eyes that John had raised with his head to the sky, so to allow her to see only his chin that, for a moment, seemed to tremble a little.

\- Thank you.

\- You are welcome – Nova mumbled sleepily, pressing her cheek on her knee – I would have liked to have you as my dad. Seriously.

\- You are a good child.

_How sugary_, both of them were, but it was ok once in a while to be sugary, _they both needed it_.

Nova patted his leg while John patted her head, but soon, an irritated sigh replaced the quiet breathing of the God when Nova's pat pat became a little too fast and a little too frantic on his leg until the young girl _literally_ pinched his skin, tearing him a grunt of annoyance she ignored, because she had found it. Her ballast, and beautiful, hot Cullen had given her the first clue.

She would have kissed him for that, **well**, _she would have kissed him anyway_, **but damn it**. She had found it. _Finally._

\- Nova?

John's concerned voice was lost in the wind when Nova began to run, throwing open the door of the kitchen where Andraste jumped with a surprised gaze when her small friend entered her bedroom like a small tornado, exiting immediately with the old, ruined, strange tunic she had worn the first time they had met her, and she understood, even before she could explain herself that the little soul had found the way.

How, she did not know, but Andraste knew that if there was someone who could find a way, that someone would have been her.

\- So...that's it. Thank you for everything guys. You were really helpful. _Especially you_, Andraste.

A soft laugh tinkled in the air when Nova decided that it was time to say goodbye, but while the prophet seemed to appreciate her brash manners as always, John had a constipated expression that was probably caused by the choice of clothing that he found scandalous, but _hey_, she loved that shirt.

\- Hug?

Another laugh vibrated in the air while Andraste crouched on the ground to give to the open arms of Nova her finger, softening her features when the young girl squeezed it to her chest.

\- We will miss you, Nova.

Nova smiled warmly to the prophet, squeezing her finger another time before turning with open arms to John, but he was staring to the sky with such a passion that for a moment she feared that he would have kissed it, but if he wanted to kiss it, or keeping on watching it instead of saying goodbye she was ok with it. _Stupid John._

When a loud pop echoed in the air, a flash of hurt darted in the eyes of the Deity when, in watching down to his feet where the young soul had always waited for him with a stubborn look, the God found only grass.

\- She is gone, my love.

Not a word left his lips now pressed in a hard line, his profile a little sharper against the light of the night, but when Andraste gentle hand reached his arm, a look of hurt resurfaced in his eyes while the God returned to look at the sky with a sadness that the noisy soul had been able to tame a little.

\- You will miss her too, right, my love?

A long silence followed the prophet's whisper, but something twitched in the jaw of the God, and when he spoke, even the air could grasp raw feelings in his voice.

\- I will miss her, my world.

\- _Awwwwww._

Even before the God could react to the unexpected sound, a familiar weight fell on his foot, and when he lowered his gaze, what he found was a smiling and annoying soul who kept on making those horrible sound while hugging tightly his leg.

\- You will miss me John? Really? _How much_? How much will you miss me John?

\- _Be gone._

\- _Aww_, come on John, we will be BFF forever. Promise. Do you want to swear with our pinkies?

\- You agreed to her madness.

The outrage in the Maker's voice made Andraste laugh, but when Nova tried to connect their pinkies, the God could only grumble to go wherever she was going _because he would not have missed her._

\- You are a tsundere John, just like my son. A cute, _big_ tsundere.

A huff, and Nova found herself with her butt on the ground, an offended look upon her face.

\- You dropped me. _Again._  
\- Be gone.

\- Ok, ok, I will be gone, _jeez_.

Patting her knees to clean them from the grass, Nova winked at them with mischievous eyes before mimicking a military salute with a lazy smile, joining her ankles with a loud pop -I will keep an eye on your dumb children for you, John. Don't worry.

\- _Go._

Giggling like a little girl who had eaten too many gummy bears, Nova began to walk away, whistling under her breath the Jaws theme song as she descended the stairs that would have brought her back to the Fade.

A small movement at the end of the stairs and the hisses in the darkness informed her that _they_ had seen her, and it was with a wicked laugh that Nova began to run, the howling of the wind distorted by the drums of a clash she would have tried to interrupt.

How could Pocahontas tolerate such noisy sounds without going mad with grandmother willow's voice to guide her while she tried to save the man she loved was a mystery to her, but the voice that was guiding her through the ruins to let her reach the lake was not wise, or kind, it was grumpy, just as grumpy was the God who she thanked with a thumbs up as she dribbled a horrified monster before throwing herself in the lyrium.

She had done a beautiful angel dive and no one had seen it. _Buh._

A gurgle of bubble escaped her mouth when she heard Andraste's laugh echoing in the abyss while John's grumbling made the surface tremble, and it was with a wave to the surface that she went down, letting the lyrium engulfing her form, tightening as chains around her limbs, because, if lyrium could be the bridge between the fade and the waking world, why could not it be her bridge too?

_Her ballast?_

No more sad balloon, _yay_.

A hiss of pain left her lips when she felt and _let_ the lyrium crave her skin, leaving brilliant lines on her legs and arms, but despite the pain, what Nova could think about was that she would have cool tattoo to show off to her son.

When the world began to fade, Nova did not expect much from it, she would have been probably expelled by the fade like the poop would have been expelled by a giant toilet bowl, but it was with a fascinated look and then a maniacal smile that Nova saw her little hands turning into claws while her teeth became sharper, her voice deeper, her head bigger.  
**Her madness bottomless.**

_Finally a joy!_

Nova could not stifle a laugh for what was happening to her, a laugh that soon become a roar that made the shadows shuddering and a grumpy God sigh in Heaven, because she had _almost_ forgotten what happened to the old God who came to the waking world, what form they would have taken, and as she felt her body shifting and changing, she could not prevent herself to laugh evilly, even with Corypheus's drums to throb in her chest.

But it was ok.

She was going to Thedas, after all, she was going to save her son, _she was going to make a mess_, because, borrowing the motto of the Horse of Stark of Game of Thrones, something was coming to the waking world.

Something that could make the coldest and hardest of the winter harmless like a summer breeze.

\- Get ready little bitches! _Rigel's momma is coming!_

* * *

Thanks for reading! Until the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

Strike back!  
There might not be a chance to change the course of events  
but if there is even just a 1% chance, off course we're gonna take it, right?  
After all, getting hit by "fate", no I won't!  
We'll overturn it because I mean, getting to see the future with you wouldn't it be the best?

_( Strike back – Fairy Tail)_

\- The Templars come to kill you.

A slight twitch in the corner of his mouth was the only reaction that the Inquisitor allowed himself to show, while his eyes held without fear the gaze of the dark creature who had just come out from the darkness with an army gathered with the only purpose to kill him, a sight that did not startle him as it did with the humans and mages in the camp. Because he knew him.

The Elder One.

_Corypheus_ Rigel hummed low in his throat, bringing his hand on the hilt of his sword while the Commander tried to instill bravery in the heart of the soldiers with deep words and burning eyes, promising them an honorable death, but not all the humans were as honorable as him, not each one of them was _willing_ to die or to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, in fact, Regil doubted that any other human could have ever been brave and honorable as the Commander of the Inquisition.

Duty was his purpose in life.

The duty to fight for who could not fight.

The duty to shield who no one wanted to shield.

The duty to sacrifice his own life for something greater, for the sake of the world.

And the Commander would have died for it, for his duty, _for the world_, to repay it for what he had done in the past, for the atrocities he had accomplished as a Templar, _as a man_, but for Regis, nor the Commander, nor the world he wanted so desperately to redeem in the eyes of the Maker along with himself deserved any of that.

Not redemption.

Not forgiveness.

Nor his aid.

There was too much darkness in the heart of the men to let them see the light, a darkness that could turn even the kindest and bravest of the men into bloodthirsty beasts, _into demons_, and Regil knew what demons were capable of doing, what humans were willing to do for power.

A muscle twitched in his jaw when the memory of his mother's back turned to him burned a hole in his chest, the grip on the hilt of the sword so harsh that he could feel it cracking under the pressure of his fingers while his eyes flashed dangerously when Corypheus tilted his chin in challenge.

_But he did not fear him._

His only fear had always been one and one alone, but Regil would have _killed_ the darkspawn _even before_ his mother could have had the chance to intervene in the fight.

_No more_ he vowed to himself, grinding his teeth when he saw Corypheus raising a hand to summon his beast, preparing for the attack.

_No_. Regil would not have allowed his mother to intervene, **not this time.**

_The face of love._

That one had been the only description that Regil had allowed himself to divulge about his mother when the Inquisition had asked about his heritage.

Because, despite the similarity in appearance with the race, he was not a simple elf.

He was too tall to be one, hovering over the elven in the camp like the sun in the sky would have watched the barren earth beneath.

Even the texture of his skin was different, a pale white that in the night began to glow as if the stars bad been sewn on it.

And the color of his hair.

Regil was _particularly_ sensitive about that one.

He had almost beheaded a man for speaking ill of it, _for speaking ill of his mother's hair_, because they had the same long and soft, pink hair that he usually kept tied with a string on his back, and if there was something that the Commander and the Inquisition had learned about their leader, was that the Inquisitor would have killed _anyone_ to protect her honor.

**The Great Goddess.**

His mother had snorted in the wind when he had confessed to her that some people had even begun to worship her, but even if she had insisted that she was not one of the _Big Guys_, as his mother often called the Deities of Thedas, Regil knew that his mother was _much more_ than that.

She had created their home. Him. Their world.  
Another reality, _just for him_.

A world Regil missed deeply and strongly, because he had a home, out there, and despite the time he could have spent in that earth and the people he could have met there, his home and heart were not in Thedas. It would never have been there.

It had always been somewhere else _with someone else_.

Him and his mother. Their world. Her love.

Regil had never needed more than that, _than her_, but they had been attacked, demons had reached their sanctuary, and his mother had sacrificed herself to let him reach safety while she had stayed behind to fight them and let him flee.

_Weak._

He had been _too weak_ to protect his mother, he was _still_ too weak to face the monsters on his own, because it had always been her, the real hero of the Breach.

_Not him._Not the anchor on his hand.

But his mother. _It had always been his mother_. And Regil could not tolerate it. **Not anymore.**

Humans did not deserve her kindness, her protection, and he would not have allowed her to hurt herself in trying to save them.  
Because they were unworthy, all of them, of his mother's blessing.

And Regil would not have endangered his mother's safety for a world that had brought doom upon itself.

Nova was his mother, _she was his world_, and despite the kindness in his heart and the justice in his words, Regil knew that he would not have sacrificed it for theirs.

He would not have sacrificed his mother for them.

She was _his_ to protect. _His_ to keep safe. _His_ to love, to admire, and even if he knew how childish his dislike could appear, he could not help a frown to darken his features whenever the Commander tried to speak with him.

His mother had a strange fascination with the human, and Regil hated it, _him_, for it.

Because Nova's thought had always been for _him_ and him alone, and Regil did not appreciate the attention reserved to the human, _he did not like to share_, especially something that belonged to his mother, just like her strange but tender way of speaking of which Regil was so fond.

Because he had informed the Inquisition of the arrival of a powerful enemy, but he had kept to himself the exact world with which his mother had described _them_.

The darkspawn who, quoting his mother's odd words, was a smelly, old geezer who maybe had been cheated on by his wife because his breath stank, or because he had hairy feet, or because he was simply a smelly, old geezer _with_ hairy feet _and_ dragon breath, who was going through a horrible mid-life crisis.

The cursed dragon that his mother had described as the badly succeeded work of an emo kid who had used bones as lego pieces and shoddy glue to put it together.

And the archdemon that, in reality, was a creepy teenager spirit with daddy issues who had not listened to the universal law given to little, dumb kids on _not_ following strangers, especially when the stranger was a creepy, old man with pieces of glasses stuck in his face as if had kissed a broken window on purpose.

_No_. The Inquisition did not deserve to know it, to listen to his mother sweet rambling, to behold _anything_ that belonged to her, but when the sky rumbled with threatening clouds that _had not been _there a while ago, swirling into a dark whirlpool, while the earth began to shake, Regil knew even before any of them what was happening, _to who_ belonged the blinding light that cut the sky as a blade, and when the pillar of light crashed in the earth along with a titanic form, the Inquisitor could not prevent an annoyed scowl to crumpled up his features as he twisted his neck to shout at the startled mages, soldiers and to the Commander, _especially to him_, to stand back.

\- No one dares to get close. _**This is an order.**_

_Regil?_

Blinking a couple of time to allow the world to stop shaking and the puff of dust she had raised with her crash to dissolve, Nova reopened the eyes she had squeezed shut when the fade had spat her out like a bubble gum, making her crash with her poor ass on the _hard_ ground, something that had happened _a lot_ since she had come to Thedas, but the other times had not hurt like this one.

Actually, she had never felt pain, not as a spirit, but now, now she had taken a physical form and crashing with her ass hurt. _A lot_.

Coughing a little for the dust that kept on floating around her like an annoying mist that prevented her to see anything, Nova tried to squeeze her eyes to see something that wasn't it, but the dust was all that surrounded her. Dust in her mouth. Dust in her eyes. In her nose. _In the sky._

_How fat_ had she become to raise such an amount of dust? Not even Snorlax would have raised such a fuss, _and he was a bear_. A pokemon bear, but still a bear.

_Had she become a bear instead of a dragon?_

Cursing John's apple pies for being too tasty and her stomach for being _too huge_, Nova patted her belly grudgingly, realizing with a heavy sigh that her stomach was indeed a little puffed up, just like the flushed cheeks of the kid upon the cereals she used to eat, but it was for the roughness of her skin that a frown darkened her features before a tiny, sharp whimper made her twist her neck, a smile to brighten her face when she saw a face, _finally_.

**\- Oh. Hello.**

Regil threw a dirty look to the soldier who had just fallen on the ground with another pitiful whimper when the magnificent dragon showed his sharp teeth at him in an almost threatening way, raising a giant claw that the soldiers eyed nervously, retreating in unison as the Inquisitor had ordered them, _to stand back_, but when the Commander took a step _ahead_ with a bewitched and reverent look upon his face, it was with hasty steps that Regil brought himself in front of the human _even_ before his mother's beautiful eyes could fall upon him.

**\- Hello mother.**

When the dragon showed his teeth and the fire it had begun to gurgle in his throat, a choir of _iiih_ raised from the crowd of soldiers that Regil stoically ignored, but not his mother, and when Nova realized that a waving, smiling dragon as big as the little village beneath could be _a little intimidating_, she decided to lower her paw and to behave, focusing her attention on her son.

Her tiny, maybe, _too_ tiny son.

**\- Have you been eating, my little tsundere?**

A fond smile replaced the scowl the Inquisitor was directing to the Commander when the affectionate nickname reached his ears, but when his mother lowered her giant head to nudge him with her nose, a warm laugh escaped his lips as Regil threw away his sword to grasp with his gloves the scales of her mouth.

**\- I am eating enough, mother. It's you who had become a little too big.**

**\- Then I am really fat** – Nova joked with an amused laugh that, unfortunately for the already scared to death soldiers, came out like the thundering growl of a mountain before the dark frown on Regil's pretty face made her ask in a confused tone a _what_ that only the Inquisitor could understand.

Because, what the soldiers and the mages were hearing wasn't a soft, female voice that was inquiring about the eating habits of her little son, but low growls and threatening roars that, in the end, made the poor whimpering soldier faint in shock.

**\- You should not be here, mother.**

Nova raised an imaginary eyebrow since dragons did not have eyebrows, _or maybe she had them._ Who knew?

There were no mirrors to watch herself, and her reflex in the pretty grey eyes of her son was too little to let her admiring her _enormous_ form, because, if she could be sure of one thing about her new appearance, it was that her size was outrageously big, _or she was outrageously fat_, she wasn't sure what to pick yet.  
Anyway, big or fat that she was, it seemed that even fat dragons could be intimidating if the grave silence on her back was proof of that.  
Nova could even hear the cicada's screeches.  
_So?_

Where were the drums?

And the screams of war?

Where had they gone?

Was it already over?

_Bhuuu!_

**\- Where is the old geezer?**

A choir of _oohhh_ followed the weak blow that the Inquisitor gave on the dragon's enormous jaw when his mother _deliberately_ ignored his annoyance in having her there during such dangerous times, but when the soldiers saw the huge dragons raising again his claw, few were brave enough to act, few, but not all of them.  
_Not the Commander._

He was brave, he was fast, and _deadly_, but quite surprised when, even before his blade could hiss in the wind, drawing a beautiful and deadly arch in the sky, a gloved hand grasped his sword, crushing it in the fingers that the Inquisitor closed around his throat with a dark hiss that made many jump in fright and shock.

\- Do not _dare_ again to raise your sword against my mother, _human_.

A surprised sound left the now pale lips of Cullen Rutherford while Regil raised him from the ground with the only help of one arm, his sepulchral hiss followed by the whispering of the soldiers who threw themselves in the ground with their hand clasped in pray above their lowered head, their face pressed on the ground in submission.

**\- Woah! Woah! Guys, **_**guys**_**! Let's try to calm down a little here. **_**All of us**_**.**

Cullen Rutherford was a fearless man, hardened by the wars he had fought and the losses he had suffered, and too little had remained to him in that world to be able to feel fear for something, _to lose_ something. Someone.

His soul. His pride. _His purpose in life_.

He had lost many things along the way, and he was not afraid to die.

They were at war, and death could have waited for him behind every corner, on the tip of the blade of an enemy on the other side of the battlefield, so, when the shadow descended on him and the claws grazed his cheeks, he did not fear death.

_He welcomed it._

Dying at the hand of a goddess was a _honour_, a mercy he did not earn or deserve, but he would have accepted it gratefully, however, it was a surprised and not a relieved sigh what left his mouth when the Inquisitor let him suddenly free, his cruel hand now closed gently around one of the sharp claws of the paw that the dragon was using to pat gently his head while Nova shook her head in consternation.

**\- Regil, my little, **_**adorable**_** tsundere, you can't just strangle people when you are upset, **_**especially him**_**. He has to be protected. The Commander is the patrimony of humanity.**

An annoyed growl left Regil's lips when he saw his mother offering one of her sharp claw to the still stunned Commander on the ground, but despite the chaos in his head and the confusion in his eyes, Cullen Rutherford was no fool, and when a goddess offered him a hand or a _claw_, he had to take it.

So he took it, his fingers a gentle touch around the hard surface that he did not dare to touch too much for too long, and when he felt the little pull, he followed it without hesitancy, letting it go when he stood on his feet with a stunned face that began to burn in shame when the blonde man with the strange hat decided that it was the right time to speak of things that would have annoyed an already annoyed Inquisitor.

\- She likes you.

\- Mother did not like him – Regil spat almost immediately, glaring at the strange man with so much hatred that the _pat pat_ on his head intensified consequently – Mother is just too kind. She took pity on the most hopeless cases.

A shadow fell on the Commander's strong features when the harsh words of a man he respected cut deeply in his soul, but he had spent all his life concealing his real feelings to let the hurt showing in his eyes, dissimulating the bitterness with a stern look that, however, did not fool Nova.

She began to pat his head too, because poor Cullen was a big teddy bear just like John, lonely souls who needed someone to hug them when they needed it, and Nova would have squeezed the beautiful Commander like a Disney's mascot for all the time he needed.

Maybe, when Regil's wasn't growling like an angry pitbull, but alas, she did not have the time to squeeze beautiful Commanders or soothing adorable sons, not with a sociopathic old geezer to put back in his place, and it was to him that Nova turned her gaze, frowning when she did not see him, nor his army.

_Where the hell did they go now?_

\- What are you?

Had it ever happened to you to be unintentionally rude to someone with whom you didn't want to be rude on purpose?

No? Well, it had just happened to her, so take a look to see how to do it, _people!_

Truthfully speaking, it was not that Corypheus did not deserve rude people, because he _deserved_ them, he deserved the shittiest of the people alive, but Nova had not tried to make fun of him, she _really_ had not seen him, and when she followed the angry hiss down, and down, _and down_, she could not prevent herself to bring a paw on her big mouth to muffle a snort, pointing the angry darkspawn with a claw that was shaking with her laughers.

**\- Mother.**

Nova swallowed the fire and the sniggers when she heard Regil's scolding tone from beneath, but _really_, he had been _all the time_ there and she had not seen him because he was so...so..._wee_.

Him and his army.

Him and his dragon.

She feared to see his archdemon now.

Because she could use them like toothpicks.

A puff of smoke left her nostrils when she swallowed back a laugh for the annoyed look on the darkspawn's face while his army seemed to realize that attack, now, would have been useless, _deadly_, and not so wise, not when there was a dragon that could crush them all under her big ass if she would have decided to sit on them.

Could you imagine how destructive her farts would have been?

_Oh my god._

_**She could have caused a storm with them.**_

\- Abomination.

The sudden stiffness of Regil and the dark look on the Commander's handsome face informed her that the old geezer had said something _really _rude about her, but if he thought that she was scared of a sociopathic man with control mania who maybe did not even brush his teeth, judging by the rot she could see even from up there, then, he was wrong.

Because bad hygiene was a mortal sin in her list of the most horrible things a person could do in his life, along with being a bully and racist, and a racist bully with bad hygiene _had_ to be brought down.

A loud bang thundered in the wind when Nova hit her chest with her claws, roaring and moving on the ground in what could have been seen as a threatening dance of war, hitting her thigh and her chest with her paws, but even if it was a little too sad that no one of them could recognize the _awesome_ haka Maori she was performing, it was still an appalling sight that made the Templars back away with a fearful look on their face.

**\- Come at me, bro!**

Her roar made all of them flinch and stepping back with a horrified gasp, but despite the challenge she had just thrown to blasted Corypheus, pity that she had not a white glove to slam in his face, the dark spawn seemed to think about his next move for a while, studying her with his dark eyes before he decided, _suddenly_, to disappear with an angry snarl in a puff of smoke that Nova watched in outrage for two seconds before an angry roar left her throat.

\- What do we do, now?

The bewildered whisper of a soldier seemed to break whatever spell had befallen on the army after the appearing of the Elder One and the Great Goddess, but if the mages and warriors in the camp could sigh in relief, on the other side of the battlefield, General Samson could only stare at the dragon in silence, while the Templars at his back swung back and forth on their spot like tiny children who did not dare to say to their grumpy dad if they could stop to pee.

\- Should we retreat?

The Commander turned to the soldier who had just spoken to him, a pensive look on his face, because he neither knew what to do.

Retreating or attacking?

The Templars on the mountain were too scared of the Great Goddess to advance, and Samson's stony expression told him that the General was simply at a loss of things to do, so what was better?

Hit them before they could hit or return behind the safety of Haven's wall and ignore the Templar?

\- Inquisitor?

When Regil heard him, he _chose_ to ignore it, he had the excuse of his mother's roaring not to answer to him, but when even Cassandra called him, the Inquisitor had to turn with an annoyed expression on his face that seemed to startle the female warrior.

Because the Inquisitor had never been so expressive.

He had never been so _human_ before.

\- We should retreat. The Templars are no longer a threat. They could not be so foolish to attack.

A raised eyebrow followed the affectionate _mother_ that the Inquisitor had just whispered to call back the majestic dragon that Cassandra watched in awe, still a little bewildered of having a dragon on their side, but they needed all the help they could gather, and she would not have refused the help of a Goddess.

**\- Mother.**

Nova did not hear the quiet call of her son, she was still too pissed off to focus on her surroundings, because she was _outraged_. Indignant.

Disappointed. _Again._

Because, _really_, where was her epic battle?

And her badass soundtrack?

_She deserved it_, a Nova's theme.

She had always wanted one, but the antagonist of the story was gone, and she had none.

_Fucking Corypheus._

Then, suddenly, between Regil's soft voice and her angry roars, she heard it.

A soft rustling in the sky.

Something she had not noticed before, too focused on calling the darkspawn with the worst nickname she knew to be aware of what was happening beneath or _above_, but when the recognition colored her eyes, it was a nervous hiss what left her lips as she turned with a frown on her son.

A huff escaped Regil's mouth when he fell on his butt under the little shove his mother had just given to him, but when he raised a confused look on the dragon, it was concern what filled his voice when he noticed the worry in her starlight eyes.

**\- Mother?**

**\- Hide in the church. All of you**– and Nova stressed the need to go _immediately_ when she tried to push everyone with her paws towards the opened gate, shooing them with her claws while her eyes returned on the sky with a dark look.

**\- Mother?**

\- Inquisitor?

Cassandra felt her throat tightening in apprehension when he saw the worried look on the Inquisitor's face as he turned to her voice, his grey eyes usually so cold now alive with so many emotions to silence the question upon her lips, because something was wrong, and the way the Great Goddess was watching the sky was a bad omen.

Because something was coming, and there was only one thing that could bring so much dread on earth, in a man's heart, a threat that soon took the form of a dark cloud of smoke that the sky began to pour on the ground like dark snow.

_\- Demons!_

That scream, and havoc broke out.

Mages began to cast spells, soldiers raised their swords and shields with a shout, civilians began to rush, screaming, to the church, but even when the dark clouds turned into a swarm of winged creatures when they reached the top of the trees, no man was forced to die or to fight for his life.

Because, when the swarm turned to them, when they came face to face with the towering dragon in their race to taste human's flesh, when Nova smiled with _all_ her teeth, the demons backed away with a shrilling screeches, shoving each other to retreat as fast as they could from what they called _The Hollow_.

Because, despite the scales, and the teeth and the size, they had recognized her, _her eyes_, black as the darkest of the night, with flashes of light that enlightened for brief moments the vastness of a void where she would have let them get lost and vanish along with their screeches of fear.

Because they feared her. Her power. _Her darkness_.

A darkness that was more frightening than the one of the Fade.

Because the Fade ended, _she didn't_.

She was bottomless. She was frightening. And no one of them, despite the hunger, was so foolish to challenge her.

So they turned, because there were others human to taste, other corpses to eat, other flesh to tear, let the Hollow keeps her humans, they would have found another thing to devour on the way.

\- Did they just...spare us?

A grunt followed the soldier's confused voice, and when Iron Bull felt the terrified gaze of the human on him, he could not prevent a dark laugh to leave his mouth before pointing with his chin to the wall of scales they had in front of them.

\- Spare us? No, human. More scared to piss off the giant dragon is probably the right answer to your dumb question.

\- Do demons fear her? - came another voice, attracting the bored gaze of the pretty mage that rolled his eyes with a sigh for the stupidity of the men he had decided to accompany in the war.

Not the best of his choice if he had to be honest judging the hebetude that surrounded him, but alas, it was too late to go back now.

\- She is a dragon, boy, _and_ a Goddess. Demons are beasts, but they are not stupid beasts.

\- So what we do now?

\- _That_ is the right question to ask. What do we do know now, Inquisitor? It's better if we retr-

\- She will not let them die.

Heads turned to the quiet voice of the strange man with the hat when he interrupted the qunari, but he wasn't looking at any of them, he was staring at the dragon who kept on watching the demons fighting the Templars, while the wind carried to her ears the screams of fear and pain that choked their breaths.

\- Mother?

Nova turned this time, but what Regil saw in her eyes was enough to make him stand with wide eyes and a strangled voice he tried to find in the pit of his stomach, but he found none.

Because the sadness that veiled his mother's gaze was too much to bear, so heavy to dry his voice and crush his throat while Cole kept on giving a voice to the heart that Nova could feel shifting in her chest for every cry of pain she heard in the wind.

\- He will be sad to watch his children die.

\- Whose children, Mother? - Regil asked in agitation when he noticed that his mother had returned to look at the slaughter in front of them with a serious look - Who is he talking about? What-

\- The promise will be broken. Keep an eye on them, she had promised it to John.

\- John?

\- The Maker.

Silence fell on the army when Cole's voice whispered the word, tears in the corner of his eyes when he met Nova's gaze, bringing a hand on his heart when he felt her _wholly_.

A paw descended gently on his head when Cole began to cry silently, but a short _pat pat_ was what Nova could give him before her eyes followed the desperate scream that tore the sky, her ears filled with the Templars' cry of help and the whisper she could hear above the sky, there, where she could imagine John covering his face with a huge hand to hide his tears at the sight of his slaughtered children.

**\- Mother, **_**please.**_

Regil's pleading was hard to ignore, but Regil had not seen what she had seen.

He was still a child, still too young to understand that, sometimes, there were no bad or good sides, that, in the end, _they were just people._ _**All of them.**_

People who had been hurt. People who had been left alone.

People who had chosen to fight or to give up.

People.

_Just that._

And Nova could not condemn them for the choices they had made.

She was no longer a human, she was not driven by envy or anger, instead, she had learned to feel compassion.

To forgive.

To accept.

Not to distinguish who deserved to be saved or to die.

They were children for her now, and children had to be guided, to be scolded, to be followed, not left alone, and she would not have left alone the Templars despite what they had done.

John would have cried, and she, she would have cried too.

They would have become a valley of tears, and she had not enough tissues for something like that.

So she moved, each of her steps a small tremor on the ground that shook when she began to run, and to huff, because she was a fat dragon, and fat dragon huffed when they ran, but it was ok.

She would have been ok as always.

\- General!

When Samson heard the cry, he was too hurt and too lost to be fast enough, to dodge whatever was trying to reach him, but when he felt the sharp teeth on his neck, a shiver of fear made him clenching his teeth before his feet left the ground, watching in awe the dragon raising him from the collar of his armor and scooping all his soldiers in her arms before running back.

It had to be such a ridiculous scene from outside, a giant dragon who was carrying a man like a kitten with her arms full of screaming soldiers who were trying to escape her grip, and Nova would have even laughed, but the General was still in her mouth, she was out of breath because she was running _and fat_, and only an annoyed growl left her throat when she noticed that yes, the demons were chasing her now.

_Fucking razor teeth._

\- Open the gates!

When the Inquisitor's shout echoed in the wind, not a man moved to do what he had asked them, because they were too scared, too confused, too coward to act, but the gates moved anyway, and when Regil saw the edge of the red cloak of the Commander sinking in the mud when he bent his knees to push the gates on his own, the Inquisitor hated him more for that, because it was his bravery to push his soldiers to follow him, not his words.

When Nova reached them, most of the soldiers were already inside, but she raised the last ones from the ground before throwing all of them inside the village like a hungry teenager that was shaking the box to catch the last chips at the bottom.  
The last push, and the gate closed in front of the jaded gaze of the Commander, but the warrior could not even catch his breath when his eyes followed the noise above his head, finding a sight that tore him a tremulous murmur and a gasp of his brave heart as he slipped against the door, too tired to do anything else apart from staring in shock at the vortex of demons upon their head.

_\- Maker's breath._

Nova did not look up, she didn't need to, because _she knew_ what was happening.  
She had seen it a lot of time when she had been unable to control her power, when the razor teeth had succeeded in bringing her on her knees.

And she could have fled. She could have taken Regil and ran. Because it would have hurt. _A lot_.

_They were too much_, she could feel the screeching and the flapping of their wings above her head as they gathered in a vortex that would have killed them all.

Because they were famished, and they did not care about anything else except the hunger that was driving them crazy.

They were too lost to give a shit about her, about her power. They were too gone, she was scared and tired, but she would have been ok, in the end, _she had to_.

**\- Take his hand.**

When Regil heard the voice in his head, he did not understand what his mother was asking him, but when she tilted her head toward the Commander who was still shouting order to keep the civilians safe, to steel their hearts and to prepare for war, _to die_, he refused to please her foolish request, _for a second_, because that was the limit of the stubbornness he could master with his mother before giving up.

A second that the Inquisitor used to take a deep breath before crushing in his hand the palm that the Commander tried to withdraw, but when Regil asked Templars, mages, elves, and humans to do the same, to take each other hands and to cling to the other for dear life, he held it without a word.

\- But-

\- Take my fucking hand, Templar! If the dragon goddess says to do it, _just do it!_

A growl left the man's throat when the qunari crushed his hand in his big one, but Nova waited for _all of them_ to become the festoon teacher usually attached to the cellar while teaching kids to be kind to each other, before crouching her big head on the ground, moving the wings she had not had the time to admire or to use, but judging by the shadow that had covered _all_ Haven and the mountains that surrounded it, her wings had to be bigger than her already big ass.

_Tubby dragon._

**\- Mother?**

A low humming left her throat when Nova opened one eye to see the worried expression of her son, offering Regil a tired smile as her wings closed on them like a wall of scales and bones, waiting and hoping for the screeching above her head to end and for her pain to be quick and not too strong this time.

* * *

Cullen Rutherford, Commander of the Inquisition, past Knight- Commander of Kirkwall, Fereldan Templar, had always known how he would have died.

On the battlefield, covered in blood, with the sword still in his hand as life left his eyes, the cry of war the only sound that would have escorted him to the Black City, where his soul would have wandered without ever finding rest or forgiveness for his sins.

A fate he had accepted a long time ago, a torment the Commander was not scared to face, because his actions had brought him in front of the dark gates, and he would have taken his blames fully, without cowering in fear or pleading for forgiveness.

_For mercy._

Because he had not had it for the many he had killed in the past, too blinded to see _sooner_ how soaked in innocent blood had been the banner he had carried with pride, believed to bring justice to the world, but when he had realized his mistakes, _his foolishness_, it had been too late to save his soul and spare his heart the grief. The guilt.

_No_. He could not ask mercy for himself when he had not given it to who _really_ deserved it, who had asked for it.

He would have paid for his sins. He would have taken the blame.

So, when he opened his eyes, he was not surprised by what he found.

Darkness. All around him. And silence. The grave of an unworthy knight.

_Of a sinful man._

A man who would not have asked for something more than what he deserved, what he had brought upon himself, but when a soft voice raised in the wind, the Commander could feel the life around him starting over while the young woman's chant echoed in the air, rustling between the trees, whispering in the earth, while the darkness began to fade, little by little, and the words became more clear, stronger, _familiar_.

_Shadows fall_  
And hope has fled.  
Steel your heart  
The dawn will come.

Confused whisperers could be heard in the air when others began to take consciousness of what was surrounding them, of the voice in the wind, of the outline of a village that, slowly, reappeared from the shadow as the darkness that had descended upon them turned in mist, thin and still too much to let them see, but not so dense to prevent colors to pierce it.

Pools of light began to appear in the ground as the woman kept on singing the Chant of Light, but when the shadows faded and the sight returned to them, the Commander had to use his gloved hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light that was too dazzling to bear.

Few were the ones brave enough to keep on watching it, and when they recognized the towering form of a woman so tall to touch the sky with her golden hair, the first one to look away was Leliana, her palms planted in the earth that even her forehead brushed when she kneeled in front of the prophet of the Maker with a tremulous breathe.

Others followed her example blindly, because, if the Left Hand of the Divine was on her knees, then they should have done the same, but while Cassandra followed her companion in the ground, kneeling on one knee, many others decided to show their respect in their way.

Iron Bull bent his head so not to watch directly the prophet in the eyes, Dorian made a regal bow that left him with his head down and his legs crossed, but the Commander did not look away, or bow, or look down, not when the color of dawn filled his eyes, taking away his breath.

Because despite the blinding light and the awe of such an apparition, the knight could not look away from the waterfall of color that descended from the arms of the prophet like a rainbow with no sky where the light remained stranded, gleaming like gems in a river.

_The night is long_  
And the path is dark  
Look to the sky  
For one day soon  
The dawn will come.

\- Don't touch it.

It was not the cold voice or the harsh grip around his wrist to stop the Commander to touch the waterfall of light, but the awareness that only one thing could lead the Inquisitor to act so harshly, so strongly, and when he felt the grip loosening around his wrist as he drew back his hand, he could only follow the Inquisitor's eyes on the arms of the blinding vision where the Great Goddess had to be.

\- Am I the new Lion King?

A cough followed her funny joke when she felt the warmth of her personal spotlight straight in her face, but when Nova heard no laugh, she opened one eye to peer to Andraste's expression, finding concern and so much pain in her beautiful face to make her cringe.

\- Bad time to joke, sorry.

\- You were rash, child.

Rolling her eyes for the rebuke she did not want to hear, _applause_, that would have been good for a start, because she had just saved a whole village from doom, **but no**, let's scold little, rash Nova for being too impulsive.

\- He was worried.

\- _So?_ John is _always_ worried _about everything_ _**all the time.**_

\- You are hurt. Here.

A flinch crossed her face when Andraste's finger gently touched her chest, but Nova was not prepared to the pain that snatched her breath away, nor she was prepared to see lyrium on the hand she had just brought to her mouth to muffle her cough.

\- _Oh._

\- You should not underestimate the pain Demons could bring to you, child, especially now, in a physical form.

\- It's not so bad – Nova minimized with a tired sigh, closing her eyes when she felt Andraste gentle caress on her face, but when a cold drop tapped her forehead, it was with an angry growl that she sat on the prophet's hand, directing to the sky an outraged look and an angry finger she pointed to the Deity above the clouds with all the grumpiness she could master.

\- _Oh no_! **Don't you dare, John!** I did not eat a _whole_ swarm of razor teeth to see you cry! Your children are alive! _Still dumb_, but alive! _**Everything is fine!**_

Another drop on her cheek made Nova directing a not so nice gesture to the sky, and when the grey clouds vanished, bringing away with them the rain and John's hysterical crisis, Nova crossed her arms with a nod, satisfied, before a harsh cough made her fold on herself like a creaking deckchair.

\- Mother?

A row of coughs did not allow her to answer to the worried call of her son as soon as she wanted, but when the attack finally subsided, Nova took a deep breath before rearranging her hair, cleaning her hands on her shirt to be presentable for her son, but when she smeared the lyrium on the delicate flesh of her bare chest, _eew_, a surprised sound left her lips when she noticed that her shirt, her beautiful, treasured shirt was like...puff. _Gone._

And that she was naked. Really, _really_ naked, from head to toe, just like a baby, and it was just like a baby that Nova began to whimper, even if crying over an old and tattered garment wasn't what a goddess should have done, _but she loved her shirt_, so she took her time to grieve for her terrible loss and for Gandalf's useful instruction before sniffing and recomposing herself, because she was _The Great Goddess_, a title she would have used to make everyone piss in their pants, or armors, since they were at war, when she would have gone to them with an iron fist and a sharp tongue, because Nova _knew_ that she needed more than a loud voice and a stubborn personality to straighten up John's dumb children.

She could not hope to change years of racism, slavery and killing with just sweet words and kind gestures.

What they needed was a stern parent ready to pull their ears when they were too dumb, and a woman who did not fear a good chase around the table with a slipper in her hand to throw or to smash on their nape and head when they were being too naughty.

_And she was ready for it_, she had just to find a slipper hard enough to be able to put in line even the qunari with their taurine neck, but she had time, she had her stubbornness, _and she had her dragon form_, a shape Nova would have taken to scare them to death when they would have been too obstinate to listen to her.

She just needed something to wear before appearing to them in _all_ her splendor, preferably without her butt and tits free in the cold air, and it was in her useless searching of something to wear in the palm of a Deity, that her hands found something that had not been there before, _not on her back_, a surprised look to cross her face when Nova retreated her hand in feeling something squishy under her fingertips.

But she was a brave woman, and brave women weren't scared of squishy things, so she tried again, and when she felt the strange texture, something similar to blown glass, when she realized that whatever was on her back was attached to her shoulder blades, excitement began to color her eyes when, twisting her beck, she saw _them_.

_\- Oh my John!_

Her giggling rang in the sky like the laughter of a child with too much sugar in his blood, but Nova could not prevent herself to hop like a drunk bunny on Andraste's hand as she filled her arms with a handful of the beautiful wings she saw glittering in her hands, freeing another shrilling squeal when she noticed that the wings were as long as Rapunzel's magical hair, falling from the prophet's hand like a waterfall of colored lights.

_She was glittering like a fucking Winx!_

A bright, pink spot, that one was what the Inquisitor could see between the blinding light when he heard the call in the wind, but the strange color and the tinkling sound were enough to make relief shining in his eyes while a tender smile touched his lips when he saw his mother waving at him with both her arms, calling his name between peals of laughter, before Nova turned to Andraste with a happy smile, pointing the ground with another hop.

\- I want you to meet my son.

When the prophet of the Maker crouched in the ground, many kept their gaze lowered in respect, and even the Commander ended with his knee on the ground and his golden head bowed forward, a confused smile to bloom on his lips when he heard the feminine laughter echoing in the wind like the tinkle of tiny, silver bells.

Because, even if a woman's laugh was always a beautiful sound to hear, especially during wars, the laughter that filled his ears when the Inquisitor took his mother in his arm, bringing the Great Goddess indirectly closer to him, was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

Limpid. Deep. And full of mirth.

_The face of love._

The Inquisitor had described the Great Goddess with those simple words, and the curiosity almost made him raise his gaze before a pale, strong hand entered in his vision and a frown graced his features when he recognized it.

\- Inquisitor?

\- Give me your cloak.

A squeal followed the Inquisitor's angry hiss, an exasperated _mother_ and a grunt with which Regil accepted the cloak the golden warrior gave to him with his eyes still on the ground, _but he had seen it_, the Commander's slight attempt to watch _his_ mother, and it was with an annoyed growl that Regil wrapped the naked form of Nova with the cloak, trying, at the same time, not to step on the wings that his mother kept on touching like a little kid with a stick.

\- Isn't he beautiful?

A blush colored Regil's face when his mother pressed her cheek against his, squeezing herself against him while Andraste's kind gaze brightened at the sight of their tender hug.

\- He looks like you, child.

\- _Awww_, have you just called me beautiful too?

\- You have always been beautiful to me.

\- And John could not understand _why_ I like you more than him.

A pleasant laugh tinkled in the air, and even the Inquisitor sketched a small smile before the grave look on the Deity made Regil straightening his shoulder, his arms closed protectively around his mother by instinct, something for which Andraste smiled warmly at him.

\- Take good care of your mother, young one. She is very dear to me and my Lord. She is a friend.

\- _Best friend!_ _**We are BFF!**_

\- Best friend – Andraste corrected herself with a smile, caressing gently the young woman who could shine brighter than any stars she had ever seen in the Fade and beyond – Just take care of her.

\- I will.

A promise the Inquisitor swore in his heart and to the prophet, as Andraste faded in the light and silence fell once again on earth.

No one dared to look up when the Inquisitor began to walk away with his mother in his arms, but some children, too curious and too bored to keep on looking down raised a shy gaze, gasping in shock when they say the translucent wings that kept on frushing on the ground like the mantle of a fairy queen.

But, no matter how hard they tried to stand on their tiptoes to look at her, the Inquisitor was still too tall and too big for them to see the Great Goddess in his arms, only her voice, feminine and soft could be heard in the wind before the children jumped in surprise when they saw a pair of strange eyes peeking over the strong shoulder of the Inquisitor.

Eyes that seemed to contain the night sky with tiny, blinding lights to swirl in the shadow of a gaze that Nova focused on the crowd that shivered in surprise when they heard it, the steel in her voice.

_The threat in her words_.

Because, if they had hoped in a gracious and merciful goddess, they would have been disappointed.  
After all, it was not _fair_ that she was always the one to feel disappointed, they had to share her misery too, let's call it the reward for the headache they would have caused her with their _I am right_, _no you are not. I am._.  
Because Nova had not even believed _for a minute_ that the Templars _and_ Mages _and_ Elves would not have tried to kill each other as she had been out of sight, but if they thought that they could be at each other's throat under her vigilance, they would have found out that even goddess could be pissed off, and that a pissed off Nova was much worse than balls of doom given to sociopathic man by emo elves.

_So much worse._

\- I expect from you the best behavior, gentlemen. I am here to keep an eye on you, **each one of you** – and Nova did not hide the sneer when she saw the baldy elf who had been in the shadow until now, but she would have seized him, _oh_, Solas would not have known what had hit him before it had been too late for him to react – And if I _see_ or _hear_ something that I don't like when I wake up, **I will eat you too**. _All of you_. Therefore, remember this before doing something particularly dumb. _I am always watching you._

And to give more strength to her words, Nova gestured theatrically to her magical eyes before pointing at them a threating index finger, just as in one of the posters that the military used to recruit his soldiers.  
However, instead of the old, frowning uncle Tom, it was a cocky goddess who could turn in a fat dragon the one who _demanded_ attention and order, a gesture for which the children started to laugh, especially when they saw the Inquisitor pushing down the pink head of his mother when Nova began to throw kisses with her hand to the Commander, a confused look to crumple his handsome face when the warrior felt the weight of _many_ glances upon him when people caught the affectionate display of the Goddess before she could vanish behind the door with her grumbling son.

\- She likes you, Commander.

A long silence followed the cheerful voice of the strange man with the hat while people began to move, throwing suspicious looks to the warrior in the ground as civilians returned to their home, Templars were grouped in the leeway of the village, Mages to guard them with Cassandra as their leader while Leliana and Josephine began to discuss about their next move, walking towards the war room with the other members of the Inquisition.

But Dorian, who took pity on the Commander who had not moved, _not even from an inch_, from the ground that the warrior was staring with so much ardor to make him envying it, decided to show to the poor, embarrassed Captain sympathy instead of distrust.  
He could not resist, after all, not when he was so adorable, with even the tip of his ears of a deep red that would have put his scarlet cloak to shame, wrapping an arm around his shoulder to guide him towards the tavern for a good drink, they all needed one.

\- It's not such a horrible thing, you know? Goddess did not favor humans very often. You should be proud to be liked by one.

\- The Great Goddess did not like me - was the mumbled answer the Commander gave under his breath, still reluctant to lift his chin and to show the angry flush on his cheeks.

\- Do you want me to comfort you, lover boy?

A laugh thundered in Dorian's chest when the Commander threw him a horrified look, trying to escape his grip, but if he could not share with the handsome man his bed, he could at least offer him a drink, a pity.

\- A real pity indeed.

* * *

Thank you for reading and following my story! Until the next chapter!


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